Monday, February 17, 2014

Best Actress 2013: A Note

Well, after finishing Streep's profile, I went on to do my ranking as I usually do when finishing a Best Actress year. But the darndest thing happened: I just could not decide who my pick is. It took me two hours. I went back and forth and when I finally came to a decision, it turns out that none of them will take it. Yes, I think that I am unable to make a decision here and the reason is is that doing this current year during the midst of Oscar season has caused problems with me judging them fairly. I think the passion and the excitement of Oscar season has made it an impossibility to really form a fair, definitive opinion for all 5 of the performances. The funnest thing about Oscar season is the rawness of seeing the new films and forming opinions about them. I think the time to do these rankings is after the Oscar season has ended, so the buzz around them has faded away and our original thoughts have faded too, so it's time to re-evaluate. It's also been a while since I've done profiles, so that level of focus and objectivity takes continual practice which I haven't had much of lately. So, I've decided to cancel the final ranking for this year. I won't delete the profiles though, because as a blogger it's always interesting to look up old posts. When I go back, perhaps in the summer time, it'll be interesting to compare them. But from now on, I won't do the current year during Oscar season.

I have some current stuff coming up now though. I'll be doing some performance reviews and then another Best Actress year. My main goal is to do see and rewatch enough Best Actress performances to do a ranking of the winners, like Fritz did on his blog. So expect a lot more activity around here soon.

So, what are your thoughts on the Oscars right now? Has BAFTA shaken up your predictions? Who do you think will win Best Actor? Best Supporting Actress? Best Picture?

1 comment:

I'm glad there are some open categories and I hope there will be a few nice surprises.

Here's my current predictions

Picture: 12 Years Slave (Every time that it has won it seems like it just got in over Gravity so I could see it losing just barely at the Oscars though)

Director: Cuaron (He has it in the bag, I don't see how he would lose on this one)

Actor: McConaughey (He has it because they clearly loved Dallas Buyers Club, and it would strange not to reward him, Ejiofor could upset but I would never bet on it, and I don't see DiCaprio really because they don't like rewarding that type of character)

Actress: Blanchett (Case closed I would say)

Supporting Actor: Leto (I would love to see Abdi or Fassbender upset but their villains will lose to Leto's sympathetic character)

Supporting Actress: Nyong'o (It will be absurdly close I think, and Lawrence could just as easily win it seems)